Pakistan school offers hope for children rescued from the Taliban

At first glance they seem just like any other group of high-spirited teenage
schoolboys. Dressed in the compulsory school uniform comprising
green-and-white striped shirts and cream trousers, they spend their mornings
studying hard for their exams and their afternoons on the playing fields.

Pakistani children attend their madrassa, or Islamic school, in a mosque in IslamabadPhoto: AP

To observe these boys studiously poring over their textbooks, or running around the sports field during games of football or basketball, it was hard to imagine that only a few months previously they had been living a very different existence.

For the 180 or so boys attending this highly specialised school on Pakistan's lawless North-West Frontier are all veterans of the Taliban, the militant Islamist movement that is waging war on both sides of the border with neighbouring Afghanistan.

Seized or bought from their families by Taliban fighters promising them a better life, they were plunged into a relentless cycle of indoctrination aimed at turning them into suicide bombers or fighters willing to sacrifice their lives attacking Nato forces in Afghanistan or taking part in the Taliban's increasingly violent campaign against the Pakistani government.

In one such case, the Taliban seized a seven-year-old boy who, after three years of indoctrination and training, was sent to Afghanistan to kill a policeman. His mission, thankfully, failed. On his return to Pakistan, he was found by his parents who, appalled at his exploits, surrendered him to the authorities in the hope they could help him to rebuild his life.

The boy, now 11, is one of the lucky ones. Pakistani security officials estimate that hundreds, if not thousands, of children have been killed in the Taliban's relentless campaign of terrorism.

In one of the worst examples, a Pakistani boy was caught on a CCTV camera moments before he blew himself up outside a Sufi shrine in Lahore in 2010, killing 45 people and maiming another 175. Overall, it is estimated that more than 4,000 people have been killed by 200 attacks carried out by teenage Taliban suicide bombers.

As a result, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the head of the Pakistan army, ordered that a specialist school be set up to rehabilitate these teenage victims of the Taliban's indoctrination programme.

Called the Sabaoon School (Sabaoon in Pashto means the first light of dawn), it is located in the frontier town of Malakand, where, in 1897, the young Winston Churchill took part in his first military campaign with the British Army, as well as writing the occasional dispatch for the The Daily Telegraph.

Run on the same principles as any normal boarding school, with the children learning the same curriculum taught in other schools in the area, Sabaoon also boasts an team of child psychologists who work closely with the children to help them learn the error of their ways.

"Our main task is to try to reverse the brainwashing they have suffered at the hands of the Taliban," said Col Mohammed Islam, who runs the school, which receives funding from Unicef and the Pakistan government.

"We are trying to break the myth of misplaced perceptions perpetrated by the terrorists."

This is no easy task, particularly as the school remains a prime target for the Taliban, which has pledged to kill anyone involved in the project. Its precise location is kept secret and the complex is protected by steel barricades and razor wire. Weapons are trained on visitors from the windows, roof, gatehouse and guard posts that occupy each corner.

Despite these intense security precautions, the Taliban managed to murder one of the school's founders, Dr Mohammed Farooq Khan, a Pakistani religious teacher and intellectual who publicly denounced the Taliban's brain-washing techniques.

By far the biggest difficulty the Sabaoon staff face, though, is in trying to deal with the traumatic experiences many of the children have suffered.

Speaking through an interpreter, one boy, aged about 13, related how he had been recruited by the Taliban after attending his local mosque in the Swat Valley three years ago. "There were guns in the mosque," he explained to one of the psychologists, and he was encouraged to support the Taliban's campaign to impose Sharia on Pakistan.

On one occasion after joining the movement, the boy came across a group of Taliban fighters whipping a girl. "One of them came up and handed me the cane and ordered me to whip her, and I did," he explained. "If I hadn't done what they told me to do they would have killed me. I tried to hit her gently, but they told me off and told me to hit her harder."

Another pupil explained how the Taliban forced him to become a suicide bomber. His family had handed him over to the Taliban because he had a drink problem, and was causing problems at home. "They beat me very badly with sticks and they showed me the way of suicide," he explained. "They taught me it was the best way to fight."

Some of the children at the school were bought by the Taliban from their families for 25,000 rupees (about £160). "They come from poor families who have too many children and can't afford to keep them," explained one of the school's psychologists. "They sell them to the Taliban thinking they will be looked after, and it is only later that they discover what is going on."

One of the biggest challenges the school faces is to persuade parents to take their children back once they are deemed fit. "The families don't want them because of the cost," he said.

Even so, Col Islam believes he is making good progress at helping the children to reject the Taliban's ideology and make a better life for themselves. To date only three of those released from the school have rejoined the Taliban, which he believes is a major achievement given the scale and effectiveness of the organisation's brainwashing techniques.

"We find that once these children have been introduced to proper education they don't want to stop learning," said Col Islam.